-
Access our Top 20
Books of 2024!
A Novel
by Margie Sarsfield
A young woman's seasonal job working a sugar beet harvest takes a surreal turn in this surprising and vivid debut.
Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange things: threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile.
When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets. Biting, eerie, and confidently told, Beta Vulgaris harnesses a distinct voice and audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.
"Beta Vulgaris announces the arrival of a singular talent: Margie Sarsfield's debut novel will burrow into your very soul. I couldn't put it down." ―Nick White, author of How To Survive a Summer
"Uncanny and electric and quietly harrowing... . Margie Sarsfield dazzles us and challenges us, delivering a novel so vivid and memorable, I'll be thinking of beet pilers for years to come." ―Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution
"Sharp and atmospheric eco-horror that slices into the gruesome strangeness of industrialized agriculture. With Maggie Sarsfield's compelling cast and heady, urgent prose, Beta Vulgaris is a fever dream hungry to consume you." ―Kathryn Harlan, author of Fruiting Bodies
This information about Beta Vulgaris was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Margie Sarsfield was the recipient of the 2019 Calvino Prize. She earned her MFA from Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in Salt Hill, CutBank, the Normal School, Seneca Review, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. She lives in Reno, Nevada.
 (1).gif)
Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think the university stifles writers...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
